


invisible string

by moonlight_jukebox



Series: The Aftermath [4]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Hopeful, Love Confessions, angst-fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26826034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlight_jukebox/pseuds/moonlight_jukebox
Summary: Can something that was broken ever really be mended?
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Reader, Spencer Reid/You
Series: The Aftermath [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915579
Comments: 7
Kudos: 59





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**Author's Note:**

> We have arrived, my doves. I’ve enjoyed hurting your hearts over the past 3 installments. Now, let me attempt to put them back together.

Mending my relationship with Spencer Reid didn’t happen overnight.

Everyone likes to talk about healing in the past tense like it's something you do once, and I don't think that's always true.

Shallow wounds may only need to be healed once, but some wounds were much deeper.

When your soul is damaged, healing is something you have to do over and over and over again.

Part of healing is accepting that once something is broken, no matter how much effort you put into making it whole again, you’ll always be able to see that it’s _not_ quite the same as it was before.

I think healing is looking at that broken thing and accepting that it’s not what it used to be, but just because it’s different now doesn’t mean it’s any less important.

Change can be scary, but if you let it plant seeds inside of your soul, it can help you grow into something new, something stronger.

I couldn’t heal Spencer, and even if I could have, I wouldn’t. If Spencer wanted to heal, he had to do it.

If Spencer wanted to love me, he had to love himself.

\--

“Do you ever want to give up?” the man sitting across from me asked.

I just nodded. “All the time.”

Luke’s brows furrowed together. “Why don’t you?”

“For the same reason we do this job,” I told him, my voice hushed so it didn’t carry my words throughout the plane. “I believe in people, Luke. I have to.”

He seemed to consider my words. “You catch monsters because you believe in people?”

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the small table between us. “Evil can’t exist without good; love can’t exist without pain. The monsters only exist because good people exist.”

My words seem to settle over Alvez, his gaze turned towards the airplane window. “That wasn’t the sort of giving up I was talking about.”

I reached over the table to take his hand in my own. “Yes, it was.”

\--

It had been months since I spoke to Reid that night in the bar, but his words never really left me.

_“That’s what I think loving you would feel like.”_

He had carved out a piece of my heart that only he could fill.

I’ve spent a great deal of my life thinking about dreams, being nostalgic for a life I’ve never had. Sometimes the world is just too horrible to bear, and the only refuge any of us has is the reality that exists only inside our minds.

When I first met Spencer Reid, I fell in love with my version of him. It’s not to say that I didn’t like who he was, I just didn’t really know who he was.

I'd worked with the BAU for two years now; I had seen Spencer at his worst, at his lowest. While I knew him better now, I couldn't help but wonder if I was really in love with him, or if I was still chasing a man that didn't exist.

There’s a line in one of my favorite TV shows that says, “when you find someone that you love, it feels like hope.”

I think my heart may have always known what kind of man Spencer Reid was, even when my mind didn’t. He had caused me pain, but he had never stopped feeling like hope to me.

No matter how much I had begged, my heart was never tempted to let him go.

\--

It was just after 11 pm when a knock came at the door of my hotel room.

My heart jumped with hope, but my mind knew he wasn’t at the door.

In the year since my heartbreak, Luke Alvez had become one of my best friends, which is why I wasn’t a bit surprised to see him in the hallway.

Out of all the people I’ve ever known, Luke had the most expressive eyes. Spencer’s eyes were a swirling golden brown, but Luke’s had always reminded me of a dark forest.

I held out my arms and wrapped him in a hug before I tugged him into my room.

We sat on my bed; my legs crisscrossed in front of me while I waited for him to gather the words he needed to say.

“Do you think loving someone is enough?”

My teeth worried my bottom lip while I mulled over his words. “What do you mean?”

He just shrugged his broad shoulders. “I mean, look at all these people…these monsters we hunt. We see the crazy, fucked up things they do in the name of _love._ ”

“Luke, you know that’s not love.” I leaned forward, propping my chin in my hand. “Love hurts you; it doesn’t make you hurt other people.”

His feet were on the floor; his knees bent while his elbows rested on top of them. He leaned over and dropped his head, the heels of his hands pressing on his eye sockets.

“What are you afraid of?”

He knew what I meant. “I’m…I’m fucking terrified that I’ll hurt her.”

I scoffed. “Luke, you would never do that.”

“Not intentionally,” he said, letting out a sigh. “I’m afraid that I’ll tell her and she’ll…She’s so sweet, y/n. Rejecting me, causing _me_ pain, would hurt her."

"You're not responsible for how other people react to things; you know that."

He nodded. “Do you think she knows?”

I considered his question carefully. “I don’t think so.”

Lifting his head, he fixed his dark gaze on me. “What are you afraid of?”

_Everything._

\--

On the plane back home, I was mulling over my notes when I felt someone sit down beside me on the couch. Again, my heart jumped, but my mind knew it wasn’t him.

“I saw Alvez go into your room last night,” JJ said bluntly.

My lips turned up in a grin while I made a sound of agreement. “JJ, if you think Luke and I have feelings for each other, you have no business being a profiler.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t. I see how Luke looks at Penelope.”

I looked at her expectantly.

The blonde shifted in her seat. “I also see how Spence looks at you.”

“Reid knows I don’t have feelings for Alvez, JJ.”

Her palm patted my thigh before she stood, leaving me with, “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

I felt his eyes on me then. But I always felt his eyes on me these days.

\--

My mind knew Spencer Reid wouldn’t come for me. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he knew I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to have the conversation that would either tear us apart or tie us together.

He'd been trying, and he seemed happier. He went to therapy once a week when we were in town and, he was a guest lecturer in any class that would have him.

He never told me any of this outright but, it was important to him that I knew.

I found a chip from Narcotics Anonymous on my desk three days after our conversation in the bar that said “welcome” in golden letters. That had been months ago…but I still carried it with me everywhere.

_“That’s what I think loving you would feel like.”_

\--

I don't remember making a conscious decision to seek him out that night. After work, I had just started walking, my fingers running over the plastic chip in my pocket while my mind led me to where I needed to go.

It was after 9 pm when I knocked on his apartment door.

He'd taken off his tie, but otherwise, he still looked the same as when I last saw him. His hair was getting long, a messy halo of brown curls around his head. His eyes widened when they saw me, quickly moving over me to find some clue of why I was here.

"Y/n?" he questioned, his tone bewildered. "Is everything alright?"

 _No._ “I’m sorry, I should have called,” I mumbled, mentally shaking myself. “Is this a bad time?”

Spencer shook his head. “Of course not.” He quickly pulled the door open and waved me inside. “Do…do you want me to hang your coat up?”

I swallowed thickly, shaking my head. “I’m not sure…I’m not sure if I can stay.” _I’m still cold. I’m always so cold._

He just nodded, accepting my words.

“Do you think…do you think I have feelings for Alvez?”

His eyebrows quirked up at the question. “No. I mean, I hadn’t.”

“I don’t,” I stressed. “Not like that. He’s…he’s my friend.”

“And he loves Garcia,” Spencer supplied, pulling a small laugh from me.

“Do you think everyone knows that?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Everyone but Garcia, I think.”

I gave him a small smile. “You’ve known her the longest. Do you think she could love him back?”

Shifting his weight from foot to foot he said, “I think she’s afraid.”

I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “What are you afraid of?”

Spencer mulled over my words, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. “I’m worried that…I’m worried that I can’t be the man I was. You didn’t know me before I went to prison…I don’t even feel like the same person anymore. That person never hurt people.”

“You’re still you, Reid,” I whispered.

He just shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t be this new person. I thought that…The person I was before was in love with JJ, and I felt like her telling me that she loved me…I thought that was the last thread holding me to my old life being severed. If I could just have JJ then I could go back to being the same person I was before. That was my dream. I never wanted to become this.”

“There’s nothing wrong with who you are, Reid,” I said, taking step towards him. “You can’t go back to being the person you were before but, that doesn't mean the person you are now isn't worthy of… _everything_." 

His eyes betrayed how tortured he felt. “I’ve hurt people, Y/n.”

“People have hurt _you,_ Spencer! You're not a puzzle that needs to be put back together. Everything you've gone through may have changed you…but _you_ ,” I reached out to tap his chest, right over his heart. “The you in here, that hasn’t changed.”

Spencer looked so desperate to believe me; his hand came up to cover my own, holding it in place over his racing heart.

“You can have new dreams, Spencer.”

He gave me a rueful smile. “Every dream I have is about you now.”

I didn’t realize I was crying until his fingers brushed the tear from my cheek. “What are you afraid of?” he asked softly.

My breath left my lungs in a shaky exhale. “I’m afraid you’ll haunt me,” I whispered. “I’m afraid that I’ll walk away from you, but I won’t leave you behind. You’ll be this shadow that I’ll always be able to see out of the corner of my eye.”

His hand cupped my jaw, his thumb brushing over the skin of my cheek. “I don’t want you to be afraid.”

I offered him a sad smile. “I don’t know how to not be afraid.”

Spencer let out a sigh before he spoke again, his voice urgent. “It’s not fair of me to ask to change the end of your story. I know that. You deserve someone better than me. What I asked you that night outside the bar was completely selfish…I swore I’d never be that selfish again…but what I’m asking for now makes me a liar.”

His thumb ran over the back of my hand. "I'm not asking to be your final choice. I don't deserve that. I'm just…I want to be an option. I want to be a possible ending for your story. I want it to be our story," he rasped out, his voice breaking with emotion.

I took a step closer to him, pressing our bodies together as my hand coming up to touch the side of his face. “I think you’ve always been the only option for me, Spence.” I ran my thumb over his cheek. “I don’t know if we can make this work.”

Spencer leaned down until his face was so close against mine that our noses brushed, I could feel his breath over my lips. “I know. I just…I want to try.”

I made the final move, closing the distance between us, brushing my lips against his for the first time.

_I do too._


End file.
